This occasional series focuses on members of the Frontier Fields team. It highlights the individuals, their jobs, and the paths they took to get to where they are today.

Jennifer Mack, a Hubble Research and Instrument Scientist, answers questions about her role on the Frontier Fields project.

What is your position?

My formal title is Research & Instrument Scientist in Hubble Space Telescope’s Instruments Division. I help manage the Frontier Fields data pipeline, which delivers the best possible calibrated data products to the astronomical community. I am also part of the WFC3 [Wide Field Camera 3] Instrument team where I work on calibration of the UVIS [ultraviolet and visible light] and IR [infrared light] detectors.

What is a “data pipeline” and what does it mean to “calibrate”?

A data pipeline is a set of software for processing and combining sets of images. It includes tools to correct for instrument artifacts, such as bad pixels, thermal signal from the detectors, and variations in sensitivity across the field of view. The goal of calibration is to tie the brightness of objects measured in Hubble’s cameras to some absolute system, based on measurements of stars of known brightness.

What does a typical day on the job entail? What are your responsibilities?

The data pipeline team keeps an eye on the Frontier Fields images as they are arriving from the telescope. For a given cluster, these come in a steady stream over a period of about 6 weeks, so we have to keep on top of things. First and foremost we need to be sure that the telescope was pointing in the right place and that it was stable throughout the exposure.

We also develop software to correct the images for artifacts that aren’t automatically handled by Hubble’s standard calibration pipeline. This includes masking out artifacts like satellite trails or scattered light from bright stars. We also mask IR ‘persistence’ which is leftover signal from very bright objects in observations taken just prior to ours. For the IR detector, we correct the images for stray light, usually from the bright Earth, that varies with time over the course of an exposure. For the ACS [Advanced Camera for Surveys] detector, we correct for artifacts like hot pixels and charge transfer losses during readout, both of which are considerable after being in space for 13 years.

Once that is complete, we correct the images for distortion and align them. These are then stacked together to create full-depth mosaics for each filter using specialized software called AstroDrizzle which allows us to optimize the resolution of the final images.

What specifically is your background?

I have a BS in physics and an MS in astrophysics. I’ve been at Space Telescope since 1996, and over the years have helped calibrate Hubble’s main imaging cameras: WFPC2 [Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2], ACS, and now WFC3.

What particularly interested you in school or growing up? What were your favoritesubjects?

I was particularly interested in science and math in high school. I remember in physics class we had to predict the landing spot of a marble rolled down an inclined plane and off of the side of a table. Measuring only the height of the incline, the height of the table, and the time the marble was in the air, we were able to calculate where on the floor the marble would land and then put a paper cup there to catch it. I was amazed that this actually worked and was struck by the power of mathematics to predict events which seemed like magic to me.

How did you first become interested in space?

My birthday coincides with the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. This is a particularly spectacular event in southwest Colorado where I grew up, and when I was little I asked my mom if the meteors were special for my birthday. She cleverly told me that they must be, and that felt very magical to me. When I got older, friends and I would hike to the top of a mountain and lay back to get a full view of the night sky. As the meteors streaked across the sky, we would imagine that we were clinging to the side of the Earth, spinning at 1000 miles/hour, and trying not float away into space. Growing up under really dark skies really sparked my curiosity about space and made me think about all the mysteries still undiscovered.

Was there someone (parent, teacher, spouse, sibling, etc.) or something (book, TV show, lecture etc.) that influenced you in developing a love for what you do, or theprogram you’re a part of?

When I was young, I asked a lot of questions and especially wanted to understand how and why things worked. My parents never said “I don’t know,” but took the time to show me how to find answers, either in books or on the computer. We watched a lot of nature documentaries together, including the original Cosmos series which resulted in a lot of interesting discussions. My parents really listened to my questions and as a result instilled in me a general curiosity and love of learning.

Is there a particular image or result that especially fascinates you?

I’ve always been fascinated by galaxy clusters, and the Frontier Fields images are pushing the limits of HST’s instruments to the extreme. By combining very deep exposures with the power of a gravitational lens, we are able to look back even further in time to view galaxies when the Universe was only 500 million years old. When you create very deep images like these, limitations in the current instrument calibration become apparent. We are developing new techniques to do cutting-edge calibration and sharing these new methods with the user community in the hope of allowing for the best possible science with HST. It’s exciting to be a part of all this new discovery!

Are there specific parts of the program that you’re particularly proud to have contributed to?

In addition to my Frontier Fields work, I’m proud to be a member of the Hubble Heritage Team, which produces some of the most iconic astronomy images ever. These images are designed specifically for the purpose of inspiring people, and I think that is an especially worthy pursuit! My specialty is in understanding Hubble’s instruments, and I work on designing the observations and also in calibrating and aligning the images once they have been acquired. Some recent mosaics I’ve had the pleasure of working on include hits like the Eagle Nebula, Westerlund 2, the Monkey Head Nebula, and the Horsehead Nebula.

Is there anything else that you think is important for readers to know about you?

I have a 5-year-old son who loves space and especially playing Lego “Hubble Rescue” to reenact the servicing missions. One of his more memorable quotes: “Hey mom, how about this time I be Mike Massimino and you be John Grunsfeld!” Being able to share my passion for astronomy with my son has been especially rewarding. [Editor’s note: Mike Massimino performed spacewalks on two Hubble servicing missions, and John Grunsfeld is a spacewalking veteran of three Hubble servicing missions.]

Jennifer Mack enjoying time in Colorado with her son.

For more information on the processing of Hubble images, please see these posts:

We can learn a lot about galaxies by analyzing their light, through computer modeling, and using other complex techniques. But at the most basic level, we can learn about galaxies by studying their shapes.

Galaxy appearance immediately reveals certain characteristics. Elliptical galaxies contain a wealth of old stars. Spiral galaxies are full of gas and dust. Distorted galaxies have likely experienced a gravitational interaction with another galaxy that warped their structure.

The Mice, as these distorted colliding galaxies are called, are a pair of spiral galaxies seen about 160 million years after their closest encounter. Gravity has drawn stars and gas out of the galaxies into long tails. Credit: NASA, H. Ford (JHU), G. Illingworth (UCSC/LO), M.Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), the ACS Science Team, and ESA

The Frontier Fields project adds another dimension to this simple analysis. When we look at extremely distant galaxies with the magnification of gravitational lensing, we see new detail that was previously obscured by distance. Their shapes are clues to what occurred within those galaxies when they were very young.

Galaxies viewed through the gravitational lenses of the Frontier Fields clusters can be seen at a resolution 10 times greater than non-lensed galaxies. That means those tiny red dots that so thrill astronomers in normal Hubble images actually have some structure in Frontier Fields imagery.

Previous studies, such as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, The Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey, or even adaptive optics-enhanced studies by ground telescopes have shown that young, star-forming galaxies at about a redshift of 2 (existing when the universe was about 3.3 billion years old) appear to have a certain lumpiness. But without gravitational lensing, we lack the resolution to say for sure whether those lumps were massive clusters of newly forming stars, or whether some other factor was causing those galaxies to have a clumpy appearance.

Frontier Fields has revealed that yes, many of those galaxies have star-forming knots that really are quite large, implying that star formation occurred in a very different way in the early universe, perhaps involving greater quantities of gas in those young galaxies than previously expected.

Frontier Fields has also given us a better grasp of the physical size of gravitationally lensed young galaxies even farther away, at a redshift of 9 (when the universe was around 500 million years old). Observations show that these galaxies are actually quite small – perhaps 200 parsecs across, while a typical galaxy you see today is closer to 10,000 parsecs across. These observations help plan future observations with the Webb Space Telescope, picking out what will hopefully be the best targets for study.

This composite image shows examples of galaxies similar to our Milky Way at various stages of construction over a time span of 11 billion years. The galaxies are arranged according to time. Those on the left reside nearby; those at far right existed when the cosmos was about 2 billion years old. The Frontier Fields project is collecting galaxies from the earliest epochs of the universe to add to such comparisons. Credit: NASA, ESA, P. van Dokkum (Yale University), S. Patel (Leiden University), and the 3D-HST Team

Galaxy shape also plays a role in discoveries in the Frontier Fields’ six parallel fields, which are unaffected by gravitational lensing but provide a view into space almost as deep as Hubble’s famous Ultra Deep Field, with three times the area.

It’s well known that galaxies collide and interact, drawn to one another by gravity. Most galaxies in the universe are thought to have gone through the merger process in the early universe, but the importance of this process is an open question. The transitional period during which galaxies are interacting and merging is relatively short, making it difficult to capture. A distant galaxy may appear clumpy and distorted, but is its appearance due to a merger – or is it just a clumpy galaxy?

Collision-related features — such as tails of stars and gas drawn out into space by gravity, or shells around elliptical galaxies that occur when stars get locked into certain orbits – are excellent indicators of merging galaxies but are hard to detect in distant galaxies with ordinary observations. Frontier Fields’ parallel fields are providing astronomers with a collection of faraway galaxies with these collision-related features, allowing astronomers to learn more about how these mergers affected the galaxies we see today.

As time goes on and the cluster and parallel Frontier Fields are explored in depth by astronomers, we expect to to learn much more about how galaxy evolution and galaxy shapes intertwine. New results are on the way.

Today’s guest post is by Mary Estacion. Mary is the News Video Producer at the Space Telescope Science Institute. She is also the host and producer of the “Behind the Webb” podcast series, which showcases the James Webb Space Telescope as it is being built as well as the engineers and scientists working on the observatory. The video in this post highlights a topic of particular interest to the Frontier Fields project — deep field astronomy.

The production of the “The Incredible Time Machine” video is part of a year-long celebration highlighting 25 years of the Hubble Space Telescope. Because of Hubble, we can see back to hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang. This particular segment includes more than a half a dozen scientists from all over the country who have used Hubble to look at the universe’s earliest days. It takes you through the history of the Deep Field Program and shows how the addition of new instruments on Hubble throughout the years has furthered our understanding of the universe’s evolution.

Astronomers are not only celebrating Hubble’s iconic achievements of the past, they are looking forward to what Hubble can accomplish over the next five years. This anniversary week at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md, a symposium is being held called Hubble 2020: Building on 25 Years of Discovery. STScI is the science operations center of the Hubble Space Telescope, so it is a fitting location for astronomers to gather to discuss the past and the future of Hubble science. For the adventurous out there who would like to test and strengthen their astronomy acumen, watch the astronomy symposium online, where astronomers discuss science results with other astronomers.

For other events celebrating Hubble’s 25th anniversary, you can click here.

Hubble Frontier Fields Update

Part of the conversation happening around the past, present, and future science of Hubble focuses on Hubble’s exploration of the deep universe. As it so happens, April 2015 is also the month where the imaging and processing of the Hubble Frontier Fields data are half-way complete. Of course, astronomers will be pouring over the images for years to come — the science results from the Frontier Fields are just beginning.

Shown here are the first three completed Frontier Fields galaxy clusters and their associated parallel fields. Labeled, from the top, are galaxy cluster Abell 2744, the neighboring Abell 2744 parallel field, galaxy cluster MACS J0416, the neighboring MACS J0416 parallel field, galaxy cluster MACS J0717, and the neighboring MACS J0717 parallel field. The MACS J0717 galaxy cluster image and its associated parallel field are still being processed, so we expect new versions of these images shortly.Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Lotz, M. Mountain, A. Koekemoer, and the HFF Team (STScI)

Astronomers are already looking forward to the future of deep-field science. While much of the discussion this week is about Hubble, astronomers generally acknowledge that to truly build off of Hubble’s discoveries, we need the next-generation Great Observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). JWST is scheduled to launch in the fall of 2018. I think it goes without saying that the participants of the Hubble 2020 symposium are incredibly excited at the prospect of these two behemoths of science — these machines of discovery — exploring the universe at the same time.

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Sometimes in astronomy, never-before-seen phenomena are predicted years before they are observed. Using Hubble to observe one of the Frontier Fields, astronomers spotted such an event in November 2014. Light from a distant, dying, massive star, known as a supernova, was observed in four locations on the sky due to the light-bending effects of gravitational lensing. This is just over 50 years after a Norwegian astronomer, Sjur Refsdal, predicted this phenomenon in 1964. To honor this pioneering astronomer’s prediction, the supernova has been named supernova Refsdal.

The Hubble image of the galaxy cluster MACS J1149 in visible and infrared light. The distant spiral galaxy is lensed multiple times by the collective mass of the galaxy cluster MACS J1149, but a small part of it — namely the spiral arm in the distant spiral galaxy where the supernova exploded [inset image] — is also locally lensed four times by a single elliptical galaxy in the cluster. The supernova, highlighted by arrows, is observed in four locations on the sky. Credit: NASA, ESA, and S. Rodney (JHU) and the FrontierSN team; T. Treu (UCLA), P. Kelly (UC Berkeley) and the GLASS team; J. Lotz (STScI) and the Frontier Fields team; M. Postman (STScI) and the CLASH team; and Z. Levay (STScI).

The lumpy cosmic lens

After the light left the distant supernova, it traversed the cosmos until it reached the gravitational influence of the massive galaxy cluster MACS J1149. The extreme mass of MACS J1149, most of which is in the form of invisible dark matter, curves or bends space. Light generally follows a straight line, but in the presence of curved space light will follow the curvature. Much like the way a glass lens redirects and amplifies light, gravitational lensing from the curvature of space also redirects and amplifies the light from distant objects. We observe the four images of the same supernova on different parts of the sky because the light from that supernova took slightly varying paths to reach us. Some of the light from the supernova was originally traveling in directions that would never reach Hubble’s mirror, but the curvature of space redirected those light paths towards the telescope.

But wait, it gets even stranger!

The light from the distant supernova is traversing various paths through the curved space of MACS J1149. Those paths have slightly different lengths. The light from the four observed images of the same supernova traveled for about 9.3 billion years, only to arrive at Hubble’s mirror a mere days or weeks apart.

That is not all. The four observed images of the supernova appear on just one of multiple gravitationally lensed images of the background host spiral galaxy. That particular image of the distant spiral galaxy happens to fall directly behind an elliptical galaxy that is a member of the MACS J1149 galaxy cluster (the yellow-white elliptical shape in the center of the inset image above). The elliptical galaxy further lenses the supernova into the four versions we observe. This is a commonly observed effect of gravitational lensing that depends on the observer’s view of the gravitationally lensed light, and is often referred to as an Einstein Cross.

But there are additional lensed versions of the distant host spiral galaxy in the image. Did we observe the same supernova in those other lensed versions of the host galaxy? Astronomers believe we may have missed the supernova from one of the lensed versions of the host galaxy by about 20 years. Due to the curvature of space, its path was slightly shorter. However, they expect that we should observe the supernova in another lensed version of the host spiral galaxy some time within the next five years. The image and accompanying video, below, highlight the varying light travel times of supernova Refsdal.

Shown here is the combined visible and infrared view of the galaxy cluster MACS J1149. In this Hubble image, the lensed images of the background spiral galaxy are highlighted. The expected arrival times of the light from the supernova are also shown. Credit: NASA, ESA, and S. Rodney (JHU) and the FrontierSN team; T. Treu (UCLA), P. Kelly (UC Berkeley) and the GLASS team; J. Lotz (STScI) and the Frontier Fields team; M. Postman (STScI) and the CLASH team; and Z. Levay (STScI).

The video above illustrates the varying light-travel times of the distant supernova as the light traverses around the lumpy space within the galaxy cluster MACS J1149. Credit: NASA, ESA, Ann Field and G. Bacon (STScI).

Probing a galaxy cluster’s dark matter

These observations are not just a validation of some obscure prediction in the scientific literature. Computer models of the mass distribution of MACS J1149, particularly the mass in the form of dark matter, are providing the estimated arrival times of the various supernova light paths. Further study and analysis of the supernova Refsdal light paths will allow for the improvement of those models and a better understanding of the distribution of dark matter throughout MACS J1149. In addition to a better understanding of how dark matter is distributed in galaxy clusters, these results will provide astronomers studying this Frontier Field with a better tool to confirm the distances to far-away lensed galaxies.

Building upon a historic scientific legacy

This is a fortuitous time in astronomy and for the Hubble Space Telescope. The paper describing supernova Refsdal, led by Dr. Patrick Kelly of the University of California, Berkeley, is being released this month in a special issue of the journal Science. This special issue of Science is commemorating the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity — the very theory that led to the prediction that distant supernovae could be gravitationally lensed by foreground galaxies or galaxy clusters. In addition to this confluence of events, it is also Hubble’s 25th anniversary. It is not lost on astronomers that it took many years and many people, including the brave astronauts of five servicing missions, to repair Hubble and upgrade Hubble’s instruments in order for such a discovery to take place. The new technology on Hubble is truly enabling ground-breaking science to this day.

Dr. Lawton would like to thank Dr. Patrick Kelly (University of California, Berkeley) and Dr. Steve Rodney (Johns Hopkins University) for help in creating the content for this post. Supernova Refsdal was discovered using data from the Grism Lens Amplified Survey from Space (GLASS) Hubble program. Follow-up Hubble observations from the Frontier supernova (FrontierSN) team confirmed that the light observed was from a supernova.

You can learn more about this amazing discovery on the recent Hubble Hangout.

One of the coolest marvels in the universe is a phenomenon known as “gravitational lensing.” Unlike many topics in astronomy, the images are not what makes it appealing. Gravitational lensing produces streaks, arcs, and other distorted views that are intriguing, but don’t qualify for cosmic beauty pageants. What makes these images special is the intellectual understanding of how they are created, and the fact that they are even possible at all. The back story takes an ordinary, everyday process, and transforms it into cosmic proportions.

Most of us are familiar with the workings of a glass lens. If you have ever used a magnifying glass, you have seen how it changes the view of an object seen through it.

The glass lens collects light across its surface, which is generally much larger than the pupil of a human eye. Hence, a lens can amplify brightness. In addition, the path of a light ray is bent when it passes through the glass lens. [To be specific, the path bends when the light crosses from air to glass, and again when it crosses back from glass to air.] This bending is called refraction, and the common lens shape will focus the light to a point. When we view that collected light, our view of the object can be bigger or smaller depending on the distances involved, both from the object to the lens and from the lens to our eyes. In summary, a glass lens can amplify and magnify the light from an object.

Glass lenses, however, are not the only way that the path of light can be changed. Another way to redirect light comes from Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

My three-word summary of general relativity is “mass warps space.” The presence of a massive object, like a star, warps the space around it. When light crosses through warped space, it will change its direction. The result is that light that passes close enough to a massive object will be deflected. This deflection by mass is similar to refraction by glass.

Clusters of galaxies are huge concentrations of mass, including both the normal matter we see in the visible light from galaxies and the unseen dark matter spread throughout. Many galaxy clusters are massive enough to produce noticeable deflections of the light passing through or near them. The combined gravity in the cluster can warp space to act like a lens that gathers, amplifies, and magnifies light. Such a gravitational lens will be lumpy, not smooth, and will generally create distorted images of background galaxies seen through them. Also, this lensing often produces multiple images of the same background galaxy, as light from that galaxy is re-directed toward us along multiple paths through the cluster.

The simple idea of a glass lens becomes both cosmic and complex in gravitational lensing. Imagine a lens stretching millions of light-years across (many million million millions of miles). We don’t need to construct such a lens, as nature has provided a good number of them through the warping of the fabric of space. These lenses allow us to see very distant galaxies in the universe, some of which could not otherwise be observed. That’s the marvelous reality of galaxy clusters acting as gravitational lenses.

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In April, Hubble will celebrate a quarter-century in space. The telescope, launched into orbit in 1990, has become one of NASA’s most beloved and successful missions, its images changing our understanding of the universe and taking root in our cultural landscape. Hubble pictures have not only expanded our scientific knowledge, they have altered the way we imagine the cosmos to appear.

Hubble took its iconic “Pillars of Creation” image of these star-forming clouds of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula in 1995. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, J. Hester and P. Scowen (Arizona State University)

Hubble’s prolonged success has been a testament to its innovative design, which allowed it to be periodically updated by astronauts with new equipment and improved cameras. Hubble has been able, to an extent, to keep up with technological changes over the past 25 years. The benefits are evident when comparing the images of the past and present.

This new image of the Eagle Nebula’s “Pillars of Creation” was taken in 2014 to launch Hubble’s year-long celebration of its 25th anniversary. The image was captured with Wide Field Camera 3, an instrument installed on the telescope in 2009. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Hubble’s new instruments — specifically, the near-infrared capabilities of Wide Field Camera 3 — are what makes the Frontier Fields project possible. The faint infrared light of the most distant, gravitationally lensed galaxies sought in the Frontier Fields project would be beyond the reach of Hubble’s earlier cameras. Frontier Fields highlights Hubble’s continuing quest to blaze new trails in astronomy — and pave the path for the upcoming Webb Space Telescope — so it makes sense that its imagery is included in a collection of 25 of Hubble’s significant images, specially selected for the anniversary year.

Abell 2744, the first of the Frontier Fields to be imaged, is part of Hubble’s 25th anniversary collection of top images. The immense gravity of the foreground galaxy cluster warps space to brighten and magnify images of far-more-distant background galaxies. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Lotz, M. Mountain, A. Koekemoer, and the HFF Team (STScI)

The 25th birthday is a significant milestone, so Hubble is throwing a year-long celebration, with events happening in communities and online throughout 2015. Last week, Tony Darnell hosted a discussion of the beauty and scientific relevance of the Hubble 25th anniversary images, one of the many anniversary-themed Hubble Hangouts he’ll be doing as the months go on. To keep an eye on upcoming events, see the images, and learn about the science, visit our special 25th anniversary website, Hubble25th.org.

Observations of another Frontier Fields galaxy cluster and parallel field are complete. This time, we have new images for you of MACS J0416.1-2403. Here’s the galaxy cluster:

And here is the parallel field:

Beautiful, aren’t they? This is the second Frontier Fields cluster and parallel field to be fully imaged. You can see the first here.

Remember that to maximize scientific discovery, Hubble is using two of its instruments simultaneously to examine both the cluster and the parallel field, then observing the same areas again with the instruments switched.

Hubble takes two sets of observations, called epochs, in order to thoroughly examine the two areas. During the first, Hubble spent 80 orbits with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) pointing at the main galaxy cluster, and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) looking at the parallel field. ACS provides a visible-light view, and WFC3 adds near-infrared light.

During the second epoch, Hubble spent 70 orbits targeting WFC3 on the main cluster and ACS on the parallel field.

Scientists are poring over the new data, and one result is already in. Expect to hear more about these observations in the near future.

The galaxy was detected as part of the Frontier Fields program, an ambitious three-year effort, begun in 2013, that teams Hubble with NASA’s other Great Observatories — the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory — to probe the early universe by studying large galaxy clusters. These clusters are so massive that their gravity deflects light passing through them, magnifying, brightening, and distorting background objects in a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. These powerful lenses allow astronomers to find many dim, distant structures that otherwise might be too faint to see.

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The Frontier Fields project’s examination of galaxy cluster MACS J0416.1-2403 has led to a precise map that shows both the amount and distribution of matter in the cluster. MACS J0416.1-2403 has 160 trillion times the mass of the Sun in an area over 650,000 light-years across.

The mass maps have a two-fold purpose: they identify the location of mass in the galaxy clusters, and by doing so make it easier to characterize lensed background galaxies.

The galaxy clusters under observation in Frontier Fields are so dense in mass that their gravity distorts and bends the light from the more-distant galaxies behind them, creating the magnifying effect known as gravitational lensing. Astronomers use the lensing effect to determine the location of concentrations of mass in the cluster, depicted here as a blue haze. Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, HST Frontier Fields

Astronomers use the distortions of light caused by mass concentrations to pinpoint the distribution of mass within the cluster, including invisible dark matter. Weakly lensed background galaxies, visible in the outskirts of the cluster where less mass accumulates, may be stretched into slightly more elliptical shapes or transformed into smears of light. Strongly lensed galaxies, visible in the inner core of the cluster where greater concentrations of mass occur, can appear as sweeping arcs or rings, or even appear multiple times throughout the image. And as a dual benefit, as the clusters’ mass maps improve, it becomes easier to identify which galaxies are strongly lensed, and which galaxies are farther away.

Stronger lensing produces greater distortions. Astronomers can work backwards from the distortions to pinpoint the greater concentrations of mass responsible for producing such altered images. Credit: A. Feild (STScI)

The depth of the Frontier Fields images allows astronomers to see extremely faint objects, including many more strongly lensed galaxies than seen in previous observations of the cluster. Hubble identified 51 new multiply imaged galaxies around this cluster, for instance, quadrupling the number found in previous surveys. Because the galaxies are multiples, that means almost 200 strongly lensed images appear in the new observations, allowing astronomers to produce a highly constrained map of the cluster’s mass, inclusive of both visible and dark matter.

The dark matter aspect is particularly intriguing. Because these types of Frontier Fields analyses create extremely precise maps of the locations of dark matter, they provide the potential for testing the nature of dark matter. Learning where dark matter concentrates in massive galaxy clusters can give clues to how it behaves and changes. And as the mass maps become more precise, astronomers are better able to determine the distance of the lensed galaxies.

In order to obtain a complete picture of MACS J0416.1-2403’s mass, astronomers will also need to include weak lensing measurements. Follow up observations will include further Frontier Fields imaging, as well as X-ray measurements of hot gas and spectroscopic redshifts to break down the total mass distribution into dark matter, gas, and stars.

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Welcome to Frontier Fields

Frontier Fields draws on the power of massive clusters of galaxies to unleash the full potential of the Hubble Space Telescope. The gravity of these clusters warps and magnifies the faint light of the distant galaxies behind them. Hubble captures the boosted light, revealing the farthest galaxies humanity has ever encountered, and giving us a glimpse of the cosmos to be unveiled by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Find more images and findings from the Hubble Space Telescope at HubbleSite.org